


Breaking it Down

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [39]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 22:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15229644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “So uh,” Jared says. “This is kind of awkward.”Bryce doesn’t say anything, which isnot making it less awkward.“Okay, just — getting straight into it, huh,” Jared says.“I guess,” Bryce mutters.





	Breaking it Down

Jared’s close to asleep when Bryce finally responds to his text close to midnight. He’s kept his phone within arm’s reach since he sent the text, hasn’t been able to concentrate on anything, honestly, half heartedly clicking through Buzzfeed and keeping an eye on boxscores for NHL and WHL games. Raf scored two goals, and Jared sent him a congratulations text, regretting it when Raf’s response, a ‘Thanks :)’, sent him scrambling for his phone, only to be disappointed. 

As far as Bryce texts go, responding to Jared’s _Can we talk?_ four hours later with an _ok_ is — it’s definitely got to the coldest response Jared’s ever gotten from him. Bryce lives by his phone, and he wasn’t playing or anything, so he probably got the text within minutes of Jared sending it. He also seems to live on emojis — probably spends more time picking them than he does actually bothering to write out whatever short form of a word he decides to use, and the text is bare without it. Two letters don’t take four hours to send.

Jared half considers refusing to respond to Bryce right fucking back, waiting until tomorrow morning to see how he likes it, but that’s stupid and petty. Like Bryce, apparently.

 _Can I come over tomorrow after school?_ Jared texts, and this time Bryce’s _ok_ comes a lot faster, though just as cold.

Once again, Jared sleeps like shit.

*

Jared does his best to focus in school, though it’s not easy. He borrows the math textbook from one of his classmates, spends lunch multi-tasking eating and trying desperately to catch up on the homework he’s missed. One good thing about going to Bryce’s, even if it absolutely goes to shit, is that there is no way Jared’s leaving without it this time. It’s hard enough keeping up on homework with his schedule when he _does_ have his textbooks, and his parents are pretty clear that, planning to go straight into a hockey career or not, his grades still better be good. No excuses. Hockey hotshot or not, their son isn’t stupid, and they know it, and he better fucking prove it. That’s not like, verbatim, obviously, but yeah. Sinking below a B in anything is just asking to get grounded every second he isn’t at school or an arena until his grade goes up.

After lunch, chewing as quickly as possible on the crust of his sandwich, he checks his phone. Still nothing from Bryce, not surprisingly, but Chaz has texted him, _gonna talk to bj?_

 _Yeah, after school._ Jared texts back.

_good luck dude. no snide_

Jared rolls his eyes, but smiles a little. _No snide_ , he texts back.

*

Jared honestly feels kind of nauseated, heading to Bryce’s after school. He’s got more of a plan than he did last time: no snide for starters, but also like, making sure Bryce gets that it’s not disapproval but concern, because he’s pretty sure he didn’t get that across last time. He’s had plenty of time to think about it, through nights of shitty sleep and rehearsing how the conversation might go, but he’s worried it’ll go off the rails like it usually does in practice.

Jared knocks on Bryce’s door, because it doesn’t feel right to just stroll into Bryce’s place unannounced right now, especially if he isn’t there. Bryce answers after a minute, and for once he doesn’t look confused why Jared didn’t just let himself in.

“Hey,” Jared says, getting a mumbled, “Hey”, back, and then, when Bryce doesn’t move, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Bryce says, stepping out of the way. 

“How’re you?” Jared asks, kind of awkward, not sure what to say, or like, whether to give Bryce a hug or kiss him or keep his distance because they’re fighting. He hates this.

Bryce shrugs a little, which is emphatically unhelpful.

“Can we sit down, maybe?” Jared asks, when Bryce doesn’t say anything, and Bryce shrugs again but heads to the living room. It’s probably not a good sign that, instead of sitting on the couch, he takes the one chair.

Jared doesn’t know how to start, here. Bryce’s posture seems to be closing Jared out, like he doesn’t plan on listening, and it’s — Jared doesn’t want to believe this is a wall they’ve hit, that this is the thing that’s going to sink them. He won’t.

“So uh,” Jared says. “This is kind of awkward.”

Bryce doesn’t say anything, which is _not making it less awkward_.

“Okay, just — getting straight into it, huh,” Jared says.

“I guess,” Bryce mutters.

“Okay, first off,” Jared says. “You’re clearly mad at me, but I’m not going to apologise for caring about you.”

“You mean caring about some stupid rule your mom made,” Bryce says, and Jared fucking — can’t.

“That is so far from the biggest issue here,” Jared says. “How do you not get that? This isn’t even about you drinking around me.”

“If you’re not around why do you even fucking care?” Bryce asks. “It’s not like it affects you.”

“It doesn’t affect me?” Jared says. “Are you serious right now?”

“Well you’re not there,” Bryce mutters.

“You think, what,” Jared says. “I suddenly stop giving a shit about you when I’m not within ten feet of you?”

Bryce shrugs a little.

“Jesus Christ, Bryce,” Jared says. “Is that what I am to you? Like, I’m around, you give a shit, I go on a roadie and I don’t exist to you until I come back?”

“Obviously not, that’s stupid,” Bryce says.

“So how is it you don’t get that I care about what happens to you all the time?” Jared says. “That being in love with you kind of gives me a licence to care if you live or die, if I go off to, I don’t know, Regina, and I come back and you’re _dead_ because you drove again or —”

“You’re completely overreacting,” Bryce says.

“That’s not even hypothetical!” Jared says. “That’s not a hypothetical situation, you’ve _already done it_ , and maybe you got out of it uninjured that time, but who knows what’d happen if you did it again.”

“I’m not going to do it again,” Bryce says.

“I honestly don’t believe you,” Jared says. “And that scares the shit out of me. I do not want the fucking Calgary Sun telling me my boyfriend fucking died in a crash.”

“So what is this?” Bryce says. “Is this you coming here and going ‘unless you never drink again I’m going to break up with you’ or something? Because I’m—”

“I’m not giving you an ultimatum,” Jared says. “I can’t stop you from drinking when I’m not around, honestly, and I don’t want you hiding shit just because you’ll think that’s what’ll get me to shut up about it.”

“Then what do you _want_?” Bryce says. “Why the fuck are you making this some huge thing if you don’t even want to change anything about it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jared says. “I’m not asking you to like, never drink again, just stop drinking so much you hit ‘hey, a felony would be a goddamn _great_ idea’. Or, I don’t know, if you’re getting there and it’s hard to stop, instead of having another, _call me_.”

“So what?” Bryce says. “You’re going to be happy to get a call waking you up at two in the morning? Right.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jared says. “Obviously. I care about you more than being minorly inconvenienced, I don’t know how many different ways I can tell you I give a shit about what happens to you before you start to believe me. Would your mom be pissed if you called her in the middle of the night because you needed her?”

“No,” Bryce says. “But she’s my mom.”

“And I’m your boyfriend,” Jared says. “I feel like you’re not — you think it’s me not approving of the drinking, and it’s _not_.”

“It kind of is,” Bryce says.

“It’s me being scared for you,” Jared says. “It’s me not — all that shit last year, it’s stuff I know one hundred percent you would never even _think_ of doing normally. I know you, and I don’t know that guy who did that stuff.”

“I _told_ you already,” Bryce says. “I’m not going to do it again.”

“But I don’t know the guy who told me to go fuck myself for leaving because he was drunk either,” Jared says. “And I don’t trust that guy. I trust you when you say you’re not going to do it, I trust you believe that, but I don’t trust — I didn’t like that guy, Bryce. And I don’t trust him not to, not when you got in a car with Patterson after he’d been drinking even after what happened less than a year ago.”

“He wasn’t _drunk_ ,” Bryce says. “He was _fine_.”

“Or he was just less drunk than you,” Jared says. “Was he below the legal limit?”

“How am I supposed to know that?” Bryce says. “What, do you think everyone goes around with a Breathalyzer or some shit?”

“Okay, this is — getting off track,” Jared says, instead of ‘maybe you _should have checked before you got in a car with him_ ’, because it’s just going to make things worse, turn into the same argument as last time, Bryce a brick wall that doesn’t listen to anything Jared says, still believing this is somehow about breaking Jared’s mom’s rule. “I want to break this down into like…discrete things, so I can be sure you’re getting what I’m saying.”

“I’m not stupid, Jared,” Bryce snaps.

“I know you’re not,” Jared says. “I’m just — I have a tendency to say shit wrong, okay, I want to make sure it’s coming out right.”

“Fine,” Bryce says.

“I love you,” Jared says. “We’re like — that one you get, right? That I love you?”

“You too,” Bryce mumbles, which is like. Giving Jared a bit of hope there.

“Okay, and building off that, because I love you, I care what happens to you, whether I’m there or not,” Jared says. “You still with me?”

“I told you I’m not stupid,” Bryce says.

“I _know_ ,” Jared says. “But you seem to believe the first thing and not the second one and I don’t get it. Like, obviously I care what happens to you. Can you — can you sit by me, maybe?”

“Why?” Bryce asks.

“Because you’re too far away and I hate it,” Jared says, and Bryce chews his lip for a moment before getting up, sitting on the other side of the couch. It’s still too far, but Jared isn’t going to push it right now.

“So like, I love and care about you,” Jared says. “Can we agree on those things?”

“You don’t have to keep repeating yourself,” Bryce says.

“I will until you agree they’re true,” Jared says.

“I know they are,” Bryce says. “But just — you don’t get to use that as an excuse to throw my fucking mistakes in my face, okay, Jared?”

“I’m not throwing your mistakes in your face,” Jared says. “I’m—”

“Yes,” Bryce says. “You are. And you don’t think I’ve heard this before? You think this is any different from being hauled into front office? I’m so fucking sick of people yelling at me and acting like I’m fucking stupid.”

Jared bites down hard on what wants to come out of his mouth, that Bryce isn’t, but he’s done _stupid fucking shit_. Opposite of helpful. 

“And I thought you were—” Bryce says.

“Thought I was what?” Jared prompts, when Bryce doesn’t finish.

Bryce shrugs, jerky.

“Bryce,” Jared says.

“I just, I get all this shit, and everyone treats me like I’m like, this fucking mess, and the media keeps telling everyone I’m a fucking mess, and you just —” Bryce says. “You too, apparently.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Jared says.

“Yeah,” Bryce says. “It is.”

“Bryce,” Jared says, and when Bryce doesn’t respond, staring at his hands, Jared reaches out and takes one. Bryce flinches, a little, but he doesn’t pull away, and that’s — something, right? Jared hopes it’s something. “Do you honestly think I’d be with you if I thought that?”

Bryce shrugs, and honestly, Jared hates that shrug, because it increasingly looks like a shrug of ‘I’m dismissing what you’re saying’, and that’s —

“You’re like, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met,” Jared says. “And I don’t know why you don’t show that all the time to like, everyone, but I’m really glad you show it to me. And you’re crazy fucking talented, I can’t even comprehend how you do some of the shit you do on the ice. And you’re totally a mama’s boy. Which I find like, kind of adorable.”

Bryce sniffs once, and if Bryce starts crying, Jared actively has no idea what to do. He threads their fingers, and Bryce lets him, squeezes back a little when Jared tightens his grip.

“Your hockey IQ is straight up insane, and I have no idea how you like, memorise everything I like the second I mention it, and your taste in TV is kind of shitty but I honestly don’t mind because I feel fucking crazy whenever I’m around you, so I usually can’t focus on anything but you anyway,” Jared says. “You’re not the shit they say about you, okay? I _know you_.”

Bryce squeezes harder, on the wrong edge of painful, but there’s no fucking way Jared’s letting go.

“Do you not get by now that I think you’re fucking amazing?” Jared says. “Because if you don’t, I’m really sorry I haven’t told you that like, constantly. Because you are.”

And — now Jared is completely at a loss, because Bryce is definitely crying, something that starts quiet, just his shoulders shaking a little, and then becomes this ugly, heartbreaking thing.

“Fuck,” Jared says. “Come here?”

Bryce does, letting go of Jared’s hand to fist his hands in Jared’s shirt, his face hidden in Jared’s throat, Jared’s skin damp, hands on Bryce’s shaking back.

“Bryce,” Jared says helplessly, and he can’t think of anything he can do except hold on, so that’s what he does.


End file.
